Cherry
by Autumnsfalling
Summary: Follow Erin "Cherry" Potter, Harry's older sister, through her years at Hogwarts, from helping her brother to falling in love. GWxOC Summary sucks, I promise the story is better.


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, unfortunately JK Rowling does, I only own my character Erin.

The Gryffindor common room was empty as I sat on one of the big red couches that surrounded the fire place. It was unusual for it to be this quiet but I took advantage of this rare opportunity to catch up with my thoughts. I sighed as I starred off into the fire and thought of the peril that was currently happening inside the Hogwarts walls and how it was directly affecting me and more importantly my brother Harry. Yes, that's right, the boy who lived, the chosen one himself was my younger brother. I loved that boy more than anything, we had been through so much together and for so long had thought that we had only each other. After our mother and father were killed by a ruthless, power hungry psychopath, we were left to our aunt and uncle in Surrey. They resented us from the very beginning, constantly treating us like slaves, making us, yes even me, wear our cousin Dudley's hand me down clothes, which were far too big for us.

Around my 11th birthday I had received a letter addressed to me, but upon finding it, my Uncle Vernon quickly disposed of it. Not knowing where it came from, who sent it, or what it was about, the letter was quickly forgotten and everyone went on with their lives. It was only remembered two years later when a similar letter appeared again with my name on it, and this time it was accompanied by one for my brother Harry as well. Again Uncle Vernon was quick to dispose of the letters, but we found that every day more and more of them would appear in the house. Finally, after the house was quite literally flooded with these letters, Uncle Vernon snapped and made us move to a rickety old shack perched rather precariously on top of a rocky cliff in the middle of an ocean. Saddened by the thought that we would no longer have a chance to find out who was seeking us so desperately, Harry and I resigned ourselves to the fact that we would be stuck with these people forever. It was at midnight July 31st, Harry's 11th birthday, when the door to our new 'home' was knocked off its hinges by a rather large hairy man. It was this man that gave me and my brother a new hope, a chance to lead a normal life with friends and people who cared for us, it was this man who told Harry and I what we really were. We were magical and were being whisked away to a magical school called Hogwarts. It was a joyous occasion as we watched our cousin be turned to a pig and were then brought to London where we would be staying until the start of term.

The large man who had saved us, whose name we learned was Hagrid, told us of what really happened to our parents, and told us all about the dark man who killed them, Lord Voldemort. Hagrid explained to us that when Harry was 1 and I was 3 that Lord Voldemort broke into our home set on killing not only our parents, but us as well. He would have succeeded too if our mother, Lily, had not cast herself in front of us and protected us with her love. As a result of this action, Lord Voldemort was destroyed when he tried to kill Harry and I, leaving us both with nothing but two identical lightening bolt shaped scars on our foreheads. Saddened by the news we both promised each other that someday we would make this man pay for what he did.

It wasn't long after we learned our true past that Hagrid brought us into Diagon Ally to purchase our supplies for school. Hagrid explained to me that because I was supposed to be a third year student this year, that I would be purchasing books for first, second and third year students, and would be studying the rest of the summer to try and catch up with my grade. He told me that a couple times a week a professor from Hogwarts would come to the Leaky Cauldron, where we were staying for the summer, and test me, and if by the end of the summer I could perform the basics for a first and second year, then they would put me into the third year class, giving me the occasional lesson on the weekends to help catch up a bit. After this was explained Hagrid excused himself for a moment and pointed us towards Ollivanders Wand Shop. We entered the shop and after much destruction were able to find our wands. My wand was 12 ¾ inches, chestnut, unicorn core and surprisingly swishy. It was smooth wood with a vine and leaf design around the handle that crept up to about ¾ of the way up the wand where it tapered off. After we obtained our wands Hagrid surprised us outside with two cages, one with a white snowy owl, and the other with a dark grey cat with striking green eyes. I grinned as Hagrid handed me the cage with the cat and handed Harry the cage with the owl. It wasn't long after we obtained our new pets that we made our way back to the Leaky Cauldron where we would patiently wait for the rest of the summer.

The summer went by slowly even with the weekly lessons that I would get from the Hogwarts professor that was assigned to me. Professor McGonagall, who was to be my Transfiguration professor when I arrived at Hogwarts, would visit me once or twice a week to test me on my knowledge that I had gained in the subjects I would be taking. I was a bit intimidated by her at first, but we were quick to bond, and I often found myself looking forward to her weekly visits. When we weren't testing she would tell both Harry and I a bit about Hogwarts and the other professors. Needless to say it made us even more excited to go to this new exciting world. When September 1st finally arrived we were brought to Kings Cross Station by Hagrid and left to find platform 9 and ¾ by ourselves. After a while of wandering around, and asking a very grumpy station worker, we spotted a group of redheads rushing through the station talking about muggles. Knowing that they must be looking for the platform as well we followed them and watched in amazement as one of them ran straight at a barrier through which he disappeared. Harry and I cautiously approached them and asked for help, which the mother of the family happily gave. It was in this moment that Harry and I met the family that would forever change our lives in a very significant way.

Once on the train I sat with Harry where we both met Ron Weasley, the youngest son of the family that had helped us, and Hermione Granger, a muggleborn witch with a great knowledge of magic. During the time on the train Ron mentioned to me that I would be in the same year as his older twin brothers, Fred and George. He told me of some of their pranks and I grinned knowing that I would get along with these boys just fine.

When we arrived at the school we were brought up to the castle in boats across a huge lake. The view as we approached was magnificent and Harry and I grinned at each other from our seats in the boat. Harry and the rest of the first years were sorted into their houses before it was my turn. The headmaster of the school Professor Albus Dumbledore explained to the school that I would be a third year student this year before it was my turn to walk up to the front of the hall and sit on the stool that so many had before me. The sorting hat deliberated for quite a while on whether or not to put me in Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, but I asked it to keep me with my brother and so it shouted Gryffindor out loudly. I grinned and walked to the table where my brother and new friends sat. It was at this time I met Ron's older brothers. Fred and George took a liking to me instantly as I told them of some of the pranks I had played on my cousin Dudley.

Over the next few years Harry and I went through a lot together, fighting off Voldemort again, saving Ginny Weasley from the Chamber of Secrets, and going back in time to save our wrongly accused godfather Sirius Black. Through this time Harry and I became very close and were often not seen without the other. It wasn't only Harry and I that had gotten close though, we had both become very attached to Hermione and the Weasley family. They were like the family we never had but always wanted, and while they could not replace what we had lost, they were better than anything we had ever hoped for and we loved them for it.

I had grown particularly close to the twins, and we were often called the pranking trio. In recent letters, Sirius had even commented to me that we reminded him of himself, our father James, Remus, and Peter when they were younger, and had named us the Marauders of the New Age. Of course this was a huge honor to the three of us and we took our new title with great pride, never wanting to let down our predecessors. We took our new positions as Marauders so seriously that we even decided to follow in their footsteps and become animagi. We know that they had done so in order to help out Remus, but we had decided that it would be a good adventure and a good way to honor their memory. Though we didn't tell Sirius and Remus of course, we knew that they would try to stop us.

It was as I sat here in the common room thinking about all of this that Fred and George were searching out the perfect spot for us to practice our transformations. Thinking back on how we got to where we were made me smile as I gazed into the fire. I couldn't have been more content in that moment. Well I could have, but that would involve George and a lot of cuddling and I wasn't about to let myself dream of things that would never happen. I sighed deeply and turned my head to the side a bit when a hand waved in front of my face.

"Oh, hey Harry, whats wrong?" I asked seeing that my brother looked stressed, as he often was these days, being thrust into the Triwizard Tournament against his will.

"Just stressed about the second task, I still can't figure out this clue." He sighed, putting the egg from the first task on the seat next to him. I smiled at him sympathetically.

"Well what have you tried?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, have you opened it since the party?"

"Oh yea I have once, outside by the black lake, but it did the same high pitched wailing noise as at the party."

I looked pensive for a moment. "Well maybe you should keep trying new places to open it in, I mean it can't be that hard to figure out, we must be making it hard."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean like, obviously the clue isn't the fact that it wails, but maybe the wailing is the clue, like its saying something we can't understand."

"So you think in the right type of environment we could hear a different sound?"

"Something like that. I vaguely remember reading something once about creatures that could only be understood in their environments so maybe its something like that," I paused a moment thoughtfully, "have you tried opening it under water? It could be something to do with the mermaids in the black lake."

Harry grinned at me and jumped up. "Erin, you're brilliant!" He exclaimed as he grabbed his egg. He kissed me on the forehead before running out of the common room with the egg.

A/N: Alright, there is the first chapter! Hope everyone enjoyed it. Please review and let me know what you think, I wrote this a long time ago so it might need to be combed over a bit more and fine tuned. Let me know if you have ideas.


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